The business social network believes its mobile applications have a
big future at a time when most professionals use smartphones to
communicate with colleagues or
prospective employees and bosses, said Linked Mobile Product Manager
Chad Whitney, adding that LinkedIn Mobile page views have grown more
than 400
percent year-over-year.
The new mobile app experience, whose search and update
stream Whitney said is two to 10 times faster, has been reorganized in areas
LinkedIn believes make the most sense for the Website's 120 million users.
When users fire up the app, they will see top news from
LinkedIn Today, as well as network updates. Users may tap the top bar to
navigate the application.
The user's inbox will group messages and invites, and
users will be able to access their profile and those of their connections.
One
activity LinkedIn seems convinced is a big deal -- we know this because the
company mentions it for every mobile update of late -- is the ability to do
"meeting intelligence."
This is marketing jargon for looking up the profile of
someone a LinkedIn Mobile user is about to meet with to get a good idea of whom
he or she is dealing with.
Users will also now be able to interact with groups they
belong to, or join any of the 1 million LinkedIn groups to fire up new
discussions or commenting on existing exchanges.
Finally, users may also access
the People You May Know contact recommendation feature. See LinkedIn's demo
video in its blog post here.
As for the new, HMTL5-based LinkedIn Mobile Website, users
may access it from their iPhone or Android handsets at touch.linkedin.com.